News

New Livestock Transport Rules Promoted

A communications package has been developed to assist the livestock industry to understand the National livestock transport rules that will become mandatory in Western Australia later this year.

Senior inspector with the Department of Agriculture and Food’s Livestock Compliance Unit Charlotte McIntyre has been funded by Meat and Livestock Australia to produce several communication tools to assist industry to understand the new rules.

Ms McIntyre said the package was aimed at promoting awareness, understanding and compliance.

“The posters and video are available nationally and can be downloaded by groups and individuals to produce their own hard copies,” Ms McIntyre said.

“Industry bodies or businesses can use these tools to help educate their stakeholders, and create awareness of the new requirements. Access to the tools is free as we want as many people as possible to know and understand what to do,” she said.

The new Livestock Transport Standards (LTS) and Guidelines were developed through a consultative process involving all State Governments and the Federal Government, all affected livestock industries, transporters and animal welfare groups.

The communications package, detailing the new standards, has been developed with the assistance of national steering committee of government and industry representatives

Ms McIntyre said the new rules were already in force in some of the other States, and would be gazetted in Western Australia under the Animal Welfare Act later this year.

”It is important that people in the livestock industry familiarise themselves with the new rules, which include fundamental and important changes for industry. They should not assume they know the rules. They might not,” she said.

”Changes include new rules about the use of electric prods and the maximum time allowed for animals to be off water during transport. For example, the maximum time adult cattle can be left off water will be limited to 48 hours. This includes any time spent in yards before transport, as well as the journey itself,” she said.

”The new rules mean that some practices that were normal or best practice in livestock transport - a ‘should do’ - will be mandated to become a ‘must do’.”

Ms McIntyre also advised that there were a raft of new penalties for not complying that people needed to be aware of.